William a



(No Model.)

W. A. MADISON.

ABSTRACT BOOK. No. 433,249. Patented July 29, 1890.

A .B C E F 4 [J Z I0 STREET.

W1] WES 8E8 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFIcE.

IVILLIAM'A. MADISON, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO.

ABSTRACT-BOOK.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 433,249, dated July 29, 1890.

Application filed June 24 1889- Serial No. 315,409. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern..-

Be it known that I, WILLIAM A. MADISON, a citizen of the United States, residing at Cleveland, in the county of Ouyahoga and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Abstract-Books; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to a system of keeping accounts, and is especially adapted for use in the collection of water rents or taxes in large cities where a great number of accounts are to be handled daily and wherein, under systems of book-keeping now usually employed, a large number of clerks is required for the work.

The leading idea of myinvention is to represent all writing as far as possible by numbers,which numbers can be entered by a numbering-machine to expedite the work.

To this end it consists of improvements in the means of pursuing such a system. Such means will be described and illustrated as applied to the collection and settlement of Water-rents, although it will be apparent that this can be applied to other accounts.

The first of these means is a peculiar form of bill and coupon. The face of the bill is to contain the service or connection number, name of city, date, name of waterworks, statement of time covered, name of debtor, number and street of dwelling, amount due, and signature of officer of works, and the coupon to have corresponding numbers,an1ount, name of debtor, and dwelling, printed, respectively, on its face and back. The date of payment is to be stamped on the bill,which then answers as a receipt, and the coupon is then to be torn off and retained by or returned to the office of the company or works.

The second of these means consists of a case in which are distributed the coupons after the bills are paid. It consists of an arrangement of pigeon-holes, numbered hundreds from left to right at the top and thou sands from top to bottom at the sides to facilitate the distribution. Separate portions of the same case or a separate case may, if desired, be used for the separate streets. WVhen the bill is paid, the amount is turned in to the cashier,who distributes the coupons in this case.

A third means consists of an abstract-book arranged in the order of streets and containing entries corresponding to the entries on the bill and coupon and additional matter, all as more fully hereinafter described.

Afourth means consists of a cash-book containin g colum ns and placesot entries for dates, numbers, and amounts, which are entered at the close of the day from the coupons received from the cashier after their assortmcnt in the distrilmting-case.

I have made these separate means the subject of separate applications for patents.

The application for the bill and coupon is Serial No. 315,407; for the distributingcase, Serial No. 315310. The abstract-book is made the subject of the present application, and the cash-book is made the subject of Serial No. 315,408.

Referring now to the drawing illustrating the abstract-book, the same is a plan of a page of such book arranged in columns and designated as follows: A is a column for a connection-number, supply-pipe, or servicenumber; B, bill-number; O, occupants name; D, owners name; E, premises supplied, being character of premises-such as dwelling or store; F, number of premises; G, street; H, the name of month for which the bill is presented, as April water-rent; I, additional; J, date of payment; K, unpaid bills; L M N O, for the same purpose as H I J K, for a subsequent period. These headings are printed and permanent, and are separated by vertical lines into columns. Under the heading Bill Number and on horizontal lines crossing the columns are printed, in numerical order, increasing from the top downward, the numbers of the water-rent bills. These numbers constitute the key to the book, as they are resorted to at once by the book-keeper on taking up a coupon from which to make the Various entries.

The drawing represents a page of the abstract-book for a current year. Column A designates the number of connection, supply-pipe, or service-pipe that leads from the street-pipe into the premises. As the abstract is made up once a year in advance in the order of streets in which the new accounts are entered, it follows, for instance, that bill No. 31,212 (see drawing) may be service or connection No. 187, and so on. The occupants name is entered under the heading Name; but as it is more-desirable that the owners name be recorded, the name of the occupant being entered simply for the purpose of identification, the column D is provided, in which the owners name is put as soon as learned. The name of the owner as given by the debtor is written across the face of the coupon, and when posting in entered in the transfer-column, as shown by the coupon. In case the name of the owner'is subsequently changed, the new name is entered in column D and on the coupon. Most towns for taxes and water-rents provide for semi-annual collect-ions; hence columns L M N O are added, or these columns can be, if desired, triplicated and quadruplicated.

The additional column I isprovided for the following reasons: Now and then a house or certain premises maybe in process of construction or the amount of water-rent changed for some reason. In that case the rent is not known, and when determined is put in the additional column so that the book can be footed in advance and the total of what is going to be collected approximately arrived at at an early date. At the final posting the Waterrent column A, plus the additional column I, less the unpaid-bills column H, amount to the sums shown on the cash-book.

This book is posted from the coupons assorted in the distributing-case, and each line thereof is numbered to correspond with the number of a bill and coupon and adapted to contain the same information. The figures in the various columns are posted by a numbering-machine.

WVhat I claim is- 1. An abstract-book of accounts for waterrents provided with ruled columns having, respectively, the following permanent headings: Connection Number, Bill Number, Name, Transfer, Premises Supplied, Number, Street, April (or other month) lVater Rent, Additional, Date of Payment, Unpaid Bills, in combination with additional columns headed October (or other month) Water Rent, Additional, Date of Payment in, Unpaid Bills, and ruled horizontal lines crossing said Vertical columns, the said column headed Bill Number provided with permanentbill-numbers thereunder arranged in numerical order between said horizontal lines to indicate the places in which to insert the remaining entries, substantially as described.

2. In an abstract-book of accounts for waterrents provided with vertical columns and horizontal ruled lines, the combination therewith of the column provided with the permanent heading Connection Number, the column provided with the permanent heading Bill Number, and the permanent numbers printed in numerical order under the said heading and increasing from top to bottom, substantially as and for the purpose described.

In testimony whereof I affix ni y signature in presence of two witnesses.

\VILLIAM A. MADISON.

Witnesses:

J. O. ROSSITER, WM. H. LUTToN, J r. 

